


Heroes, Just For One Day

by onyourleft084



Category: David Bowie (Musician), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: David Bowie - Freeform, Gen, Glam Rock, Heroes, IFD2016, International Fanworks Day 2016, Lazarus - Freeform, Natasha/Tony bonding, Space Oddity, Starman - Freeform, in memorian, let's dance, mourning the loss of a legend, slight depression, this is also a Bowie tribute, this is how Tony fanboys, ziggy stardust - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onyourleft084/pseuds/onyourleft084
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the IFD2016 prompt 'What do your favorite characters get fannish over?'<br/>---</p><p>“But that’s why we’re here, right?” She asked him. “To fix what SHIELD left behind. To fight the battles they knew they never could.”</p><p>He shook his head, “You know we can't solve everything, Romanoff.”</p><p>Natasha looked at him seriously. “We can try.”</p><p>“We can be Heroes,” she started to sing, “just for one day.”</p><p>---</p><p>Takes place immediately before and then after Avengers: Age of Ultron</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes, Just For One Day

**2014**

If the world thought to see Natasha Romanoff as a superhero, they were unfortunately mistaken. Natasha was a spy, first and foremost. And her game was information. Within the first week of the newly-reassembled Avengers’ operations she had already made a point of finding out as much as she could about them, whether in terms of the personal or the professional.

So far Natasha had gleaned that Steve Rogers had a thing for milkshakes. Thor liked it when you explained things about earth to him without him asking. Bruce Banner had a soft spot for Carmina Burana. Whenever Clint Barton disappeared, it was to talk to his wife, who so far only Natasha knew about.

Oh, and Tony Stark was a pretty big David Bowie fan.

Natasha found this out when she arrived at the Tower late one night from a solo mission, expecting everyone to already have gone to bed, only to hear the unmistakable drums and bass of ‘Space Oddity’ when she entered the common area.

Tony was sitting on the sofa, a blank expression on his face, holding a bottle of liquor.

He looked up. “Oh. Hey, Romanoff.”

“Stark?” Natasha said, squinting in the dim light. “Why are you up?”

“Don't you notice, Red? I don't sleep. Not anymore.” He flicked on a nearby lamp, flooding their surroundings with a brighter, but still soft yellow glow. “Mission report?”

“I’ll file it later,” she yawned, stretching, and tossing her jacket on the sofa next to Tony. “I need a drink for now.”

He motioned to the bar, “Help yourself.”

Natasha did, grabbing a bottle of beer for herself and flopping onto another armchair.

Tony peered at her. “Was expecting you to go to your suite.”

She shrugged, taking a swig. “I like this song.”

“Do you.”

“I like Bowie.”

“No way,” said Tony, and though his tone seemed indifferent Natasha could see his face light up slightly. “Me too. Used to listen to him in college. Then a lot when my parents died.” He looked up. “So, uh, where’d a Soviet assassin get the time and opportunity to indulge in landmark rock music?”

Natasha allowed herself a smile. “My first week in the States after defecting from the KGB, I snuck out of my SHIELD quarters and took a long walk around Times Square. I walked into a record shop where they were playing Rebel Rebel. And that was the spark.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna play that next?”

His suggestion surprised Natasha. She raised her eyebrows and just said, “Sure.”

They sat for a while without saying anything as the song reached its bridge, with the familiar guitar riff punctuated by sharp claps.

“Why can't you sleep, Tony?” Natasha finally said, using his first name now. “Why are you up listening to ancient music and drinking by yourself?”

Tony didn't look at her. He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

“Promise not to tell anyone.”

She smirked, “keeping secrets is my job. And my life.”

Tony nodded. “Well, ever since we moved back here-- to the tower, to New York-- it’s all been coming back to me. Aliens. Loki. Wormhole...before you know it, I'm back to three hours of sleep a night and the rest spent tinkering on whatever I can fix.”

He swallowed hard before continuing. “I thought I’d kicked it after the Mandarin thing, and maybe coming back to New York would be okay, but turns out I was wrong.” Tony gestured to the sound system on the wall. “But this helps. Major Tom keeps me grounded. Makes me feel less alone about going into outer space and facing almost certain death.”

Natasha didn't know what to say. She didn't say anything. Tony didn't seem to expect her to. The song ended, and he asked JARVIS to play ‘Rebel Rebel’ next.

“Wait,” Natasha said.

“What?”

“I change my mind.” She glanced up, “JARVIS, could you play Heroes instead?”

Tony looked at her amusedly as the guitar intro started to fill the room. “Clever.”

She found herself smiling at him, “Yeah, why not?”

_(“I, I will be king,”)_

"Can I ask you something?" He said suddenly. “Do you ever feel like...it wasn't really worth it?”

She looked up. “What do you mean?”

_(“And you, you will be queen,”)_

“Joining SHIELD, fighting the good fight. Only to find out they’ve been rotten to the core with Hydra all over it.” Tony looked at her.

Natasha sighed. “You have no idea.”

_(“Though nothing will drive them away,”)_

“But that’s why we’re here, right?” She asked him. “To fix what SHIELD left behind. To fight the battles they knew they never could.”

He shook his head, “You know we can't solve everything, Romanoff.”

Natasha looked at him seriously. “We can try.”

_“We can beat them, just for one day,”_

“ _We can be Heroes_ ,” she started to sing, “ _just for one day._ ”

It made Tony smile. He put down his bottle and picked up the next stanza.

“ _And you, you can be mean_ \-- Seriously, you can,” he said, pointing at her, “the way you tease Steve and Clint--”

“Whatever, Stark,” said Natasha, but she started to laugh.

“ _And I, I'll drink all the time…_ ” he glanced at the bottle and rolled his eyes, “no surprises there. _'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact,_ ”

This time Natasha joined him. “ _Yes we're lovers, and that is that_.”

“Holy hell, you can sing,” Tony said.

“Apparently,” said Natasha with a grin.

They never got off the sofa, but they still managed to dance somewhat; bobbing their heads and tapping their feet and shaking their shoulders. And singing together.

 _“Though nothing, will keep us together_  
We could steal time,  
just for one day  
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever  
What d'you say?”

"Y'know, I always painted you as a Black Sabbath kinda guy," Natasha said.

"That's me in some of my lighter moods," Tony said. "But moments like this? The more, uh, vulnerable moments?" He paused. "I just end up playing this stuff. It just makes so much sense, you know?"

She looked at him. "I totally feel the same way."

"Is that really you, or one of your quadruple-agent personas?" He said warily.

This time Natasha really smiled, "I don't even know who I am exactly, but I do know that I love David Bowie."

He grinned, holding out his bottle to her. "To David Bowie, then."

"And to us," Natasha replied, clinking her bottle against his, "the weary Avengers."

 

* * *

 

**Present Day: 2016**

The news hits Natasha like a truck early in the morning during breakfast briefing. Steve’s got their objectives for the day lined up on a projector and is going through them one by one when Sam, who’s snuck a glimpse at his phone, starts cursing.

“Language!” Steve says immediately.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” asks Rhodey.

Sam holds his phone up, “This just in, David Bowie passed away last night.”

Natasha looks up. “What?”

“Yeah.” Sam frowns. “This is awful.”

“Oh, no,” says Rhodey, shaking his head.

“What a tragedy,” murmurs Vision, out of politeness more than anything.

Steve sighs, and Wanda just says “Who is David Bowie?”

“Was,” Natasha corrects. “He was. A singer. One of the best. One of my favorites.”

“You know I’m more of a Marvin Gaye kinda guy,” says Sam, “but Bowie was a legend.” He glances at Natasha, “I didn't know you were a fan.”

Natasha shrugs, “Now you do.”

It hangs on her the whole day, while overseeing Wanda’s training routine, talking logistics with Maria Hill, and flying the over a drop zone where the Quinjet deploys Falcon, War Machine and Scarlet Witch onto an existing Hydra outpost.

While hovering above airspace waiting for their call for extraction, Natasha calls Clint.

“Did you hear?”

“About what.” Her former partner’s voice is groggy, and Natasha is reminded it’s 7:30 AM, still way too early for a retired father of three.

“Hmm, you live on a farm, Barton, not under a rock…”

“Jeezus, Natasha, just tell me!”

She sighs. “David Bowie just passed away.”

“Oh, damn, seriously?” There’s a pause. “Natasha, I’m so sorry. This happened so suddenly. Was he sick?”

“He had cancer,” she says, “I’m not sure what kind. Yeah, it is sudden.”

“I know he was one of your favorite singers,” Clint says. “I was always more of a Led Zeppelin kinda guy, y’know. But still…” There’s a loud noise from the other end, and Clint sighs. “Yeah, um, I’m sorry, I have to go. Talk soon, Nat. Hang in there.”

By the time she loops back to pick her teammates up, she’s got ‘Let’s Dance’ blaring aggressively through the speakers.

“This is making me unnecessarily sad!” Rhodey yells over the noise.

“A man just died, Colonel,” Natasha yells back, “we honor him in whatever way we can!”

Natasha runs a solo mission later in the day-- just Intel gathering from an informant in Hell’s Kitchen, nothing too stressful. She checks in with the others on her way home to find that they’re all busy. By ‘checking in,’ that means listening to the security bugs she’s planted in every corner of every common area of the Avengers headquarters. It’s a habit she’d started since their first week in the Tower, all those months ago, before Ultron and the mess that was the battle of Sokovia.

She picks up mostly silence; Sam’s gone to a VA meeting, Cap and War Machine are out late in another assignment, and she catches the last snatches of conversation between Wanda and the Vision as they leave the facility for Coney Island. A part of Natasha thinks she should catch up and keep an eye out for them, but she kind of just wants to wallow in grief for a while.

The listener picks up something on an old frequency, from a bug she must've forgotten to detach from the living room of Stark Tower, back when they’d all lived there. Natasha leans in and makes the volume louder.

It’s Tony, and he’s listening to ‘Space Oddity’ again.

Suddenly, Natasha knows where she wants to go tonight.

It’s a quick ride to the Tower, and luckily JARVIS still recalls her credentials, allowing her entry. Natasha takes the elevator up. When the doors open, she finds Tony right there-- on the sofa, looking blankly into space, back facing her, listening to Bowie. This time it's 'Lazarus.'

Only now, when he turns around, he’s got a pink lightning bolt zig-zagging down his face.

“Oh. Hey, Romanoff.”

“You heard,” is all Natasha can say.

He shrugs. “How could I not have?”

Natasha gives him a sad smile and walks over. “Of course.”

"So does the team need more funding," Tony turns to face her, "or did you just need a period of fan mourning and come over to the only other person you knew who had a soft spot for the Starman?"

It's kind of a long pause until Natasha replies. Tony cannot know about the bugs she'd planted, so she reasserts her smile instead. "Yeah, can't a girl pop by an old colleague's place to make sure he doesn't wallow in feels all by himself?"

"Colleague," Tony repeats. "I recall a time when you worked for me."

"I was undercover, Stark. And you and I both know the closest we came to bonding was when we set up shop here, at the tower," she says. "I still remember that."

The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile, "Yeah, me too. And I appreciate you coming by."

She peers at his face, “I like what you did.”

“You want one?” Tony gestures to the bottles of face paint on the coffee table.

"No thanks-- pink clashes with my hair." Natasha sits down and picks one up. “Where’s Pepper?”

“Working, will be back late.”

“She won't mind me here while she’s gone?” Natasha's hand slips underneath the coffee table ever so slightly as Tony heads to the bar. Her fingers crawl around until they close around the electronic bug (ah, right where I left you, she thinks) and pry it off.

Tony shakes his head, “She likes you. Trusts you.”

“That’s good to know,” Natasha murmurs.

Tony comes back and pours them each a glass of wine. He lifts his. “To David.” They toast and drink.

“I can't believe he’s gone,” he says after.

She nods, “Too soon, right? Although with people like that, it'll always be too soon.”

Tony looks at her as if examining a kind of machinery he's not familiar with, trying to figure out how it worked. "This is really...this means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

For a second Natasha lets herself soften. "It does. It's literally the only luxury I allow myself, to like a singer and his music just like everyone else. It's the first luxury I ever had here in America."

Tony's voice is wry and raw, "And like all good things, it goes away."

Natasha nods in silent agreement. When she speaks again, she makes sure to steer them out of vulnerable waters. “This song's one of his newer ones, isn't it?"

"Just released. Who woulda thunk it?"

Natasha listens carefully. She's surprised, in a low-key and sort of sad way, to realize the lyrics remind her more about Tony than 'Space Oddity' ever did. A man living all the way up in the sky above New York, vulnerable and aimless, yet invincible because of that. He's the last Avenger (or ex-Avenger) she ever wants to feel for, and there's so much heaviness and farewell in the song (almost as if Bowie knew) so she tears her attention away from it.

"It sounds depressing," Natasha comments.

“Today is a depressing-as-all-fuck day, Red.” Tony says.

"You're right."

He manages a smile. “But I got something kinda fun planned.”

“You have something fun planned on the day one of the greatest musicians of our age passed away,” Natasha says flatly.

Tony stands, “I’m Tony Stark, I always have something fun planned. Well, technically I didn't plan this until like an hour before you got here.” He crosses to a control panel next to the balcony, “I was just waiting for it to get dark.”

Natasha watches as Tony hits several buttons on a holographic board. “Stand over here, where you can see the city.”

She gets off the sofa and does so.

Tony stands next to her. “Light it up, FRIDAY.”

On cue, the building’s lights go out, and Natasha’s ears almost burst as the entire sound system of Stark Tower starts to play a new song.

 _“Didn't know what time it was and the lights were low_  
I leaned back on my radio  
Some cat was layin' down some rock 'n' roll 'lotta soul,  
he said…”

Up in the sky, Natasha sees lights dancing, projected from the tower itself. They form the shapes of spiders and of stars, throwing the images onto streets and building facades--

“Oh, now this is something!” She exclaims.

Tony grins. “You ain't seen nothing yet.”

 _“There's a starman waiting in the sky_  
He'd like to come and meet us  
But he thinks he'd blow our minds…”

As the chorus swells, the Tower itself lights up again-- this time, forming a blindingly bright fluorescent Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt on both sides.

 _“There's a starman waiting in the sky_  
He's told us not to blow it  
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile  
He told me:  
Let the children lose it  
Let the children use it  
Let all the children boogie…”

Natasha turns back to Tony, who’s got his hands in his pockets with a smug smile.

“This is unbelievable,” is all she says.

“That’s how I fanboy.”

"Maybe you should let yourself fanboy more often," she suggests, and he chuckles.

They watch people on the streets stop, point and take pictures of the phenomenon. Some of them sing along. Some wave their hands or dance on the sidewalk.

“I gotta admit, Stark,” Natasha says, “I’m impressed. This is a worthy tribute.”

“I hope so,” he says, and glances up at the sky. “You like that, Davey? That was for you. Thanks for everything.” Natasha laughs. They stand next to each other just soaking up the lights and sounds for a while.

Finally Tony says, “You wanna go inside and watch Labyrinth?”

Natasha faces him. “Sure.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Something nice and friendly before these people all start tearing each other apart in Captain America: Civil War.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Space Oddity ](https://open.spotify.com/track/72Z17vmmeQKAg8bptWvpVG)  
> [ Heroes ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5j6ZZwA9BnxZi5Bk0Ng4jB)  
> [ Let's Dance](https://open.spotify.com/track/0F0MA0ns8oXwGw66B2BSXm)  
> [ Starman ](https://open.spotify.com/track/0pQskrTITgmCMyr85tb9qq)  
> [ Lazarus ](https://open.spotify.com/track/3Vn9oCZbdI1EMO7jxdz2Rc)


End file.
